About Food Blog #6

 The most important activity is eating – we do it every day, several times a day!

I was born in Europe so it is difficult for me to understand how Americans eat. It has baffled me for the last 70 years. 

First and foremost in Poland before World War II we were "too poor" for chemicals so everything was organic, and I thought that is the only way to grow food!  Suddenly at the age of 26 in America, I saw a whole new way of eating and serving food.  The influence of the USA of grabbing junk food has now been introduced all over the world. Imagine seeing a MacDonald’s in France with a line of young people intrigued with the novelty!?  I hope they don’t lose the taste for the true local foods.  It used to be that the whole family sat together for a main meal at 1 or 2 o’clock.  At 4 o’clock there was coffee, tea, and something home baked.  People had a light supper in the evening.  The only observation I can make is never, if one can possibly help it, eat a big meal at night.  It intrudes into your sleep, as the digestion takes place much too late to allow you to have a relaxed night.

The greatest pleasure when I was a child was to come home and smell from a mile away our maid cooking raspberries, or whatever was then in season, in a huge pot, to be put up for the winter.  Pasta was made in the morning, and cooked that same day, not stored on a shelf for months.  Milk and ice were delivered every morning to the house. The French and Italians still go shopping each day for fresh food.  Impossible in America where the fridge and pantry are always full of prepared foods.  I was stunned that I came from a supposedly poor country to the richest country in the world, and yet felt that I had eaten better and lived better before the war than Americans did.  

When I started my family the whole neighborhood  taught me how to shop, helped me to name the foods I wanted to buy and  how to cook them.  I was shocked when I saw a man shopping and carrying a baby.  My father didn’t even know where the kitchen was, and never took care of little children. 

It took years to get used to it that in America the kitchen is the center of the home while in Poland the kitchen was behind two swinging doors and no one went there except on Sunday when the maid was at church and left us stuffed cabbage in the warming oven.  Mother usually supervised everything and taught the country girls who stayed with our family for many years to cook meals the way we liked it.  They really were part of our family and were grateful to have food and be well-treated, unlike their harsh conditions in the country. 

We always went on vacation with our parents to Sopot on the Baltic Sea, near to Gdansk that was alternately German, Polish, and a free port through history, and now Polish again.  That is why I love Cape Cod, where I have come over the past 69 years because of that same kind of ocean air. 

Back to the food... All the vegetables were fresh and cooked that same day.  Nothing frozen or canned. Imagine when I came to the States and everything was frozen or canned, and I saw for the first time someone bite into a raw cauliflower.  Salad? For rabbits.  Cucumber in cream sauce was as close as we came to a salad.  I had to learn how to cook.  When I was first married I looked for a bell under the table.  My husband said, “Who are you going to ring for?”  I had to make adjustments every day as a young mother of little children. They taught me more than I taught them about how to function as a mother in this country. 

Soups have to be hearty and hot!  Remember it was a cold climate in Poland, so that is the kind of soup I had, never a cold soup.  I never drank Coca Cola or sodas.  Yogurt was always being made from starter, sitting on the window sill.  Ice cream was made by hand in a churn. All the compotes and jams were made at home out of fresh, ripe fruit. In Poland we had a milk bar; in America there was no buttermilk, no yogurt. A few years later in the 1950's, Dannon began introducing yogurt.  Slowly other European type foods started to be available in America. Now there is increasing immigration from Hispanic,  Asian, and other countries.  So you can see in the grocery stores more ethnic foods are available. 

It is very difficult to introduce new foods to  young children. They are very conservative with food.  Get them used to a variety of foods when they are young.  In our home I said, “You don’t have to eat it, but you have to take one taste. Give it a try.”  My daughter’s friends thought we had weird foods, like mushrooms, onions and sour cream on pastry shells, and told her years later that our home was very exotic!

We used a fork and knife in the European way, not the fork switched every two seconds from left to right hand. Also, we used a fork and knife even when eating a pear or other fruit.. more civilized it seems to me than grabbing everything with hands. 

Maybe a chicken leg, all right.

Most cakes in America are fluffy and empty tasting.  I love fruit tarts or home made pies with French pastry dough, Viennese cakes which are thin and intense with fruit jam and dark chocolate, Polish babkas, delicious to enjoy one or two bites.  You should only eat something “worth sinning for.”  That is what my clever Aunt Ruth told me, and I abide by that!  Once there was a really first rate pastry shop in Provincetown on Cape Cod, and I praised the pastries by saying, "These are worth sinning for."  Next thing I knew, they used that in their newspaper ads all summer.  The next year no more such pastries, only doughnuts and muffins, the usual fat, sugary desserts.  I asked why he had changed, and the owner replied, “No one appreciated the high quality and this is cheaper to make." 

Now after many years there is one French Bistro in South Wellfleet, and people line up each morning to enjoy the croissants, brioches, fruit tarts and good coffee.  That it is truly worth it!

I have always a warm soup, a good peasant bread - brown, never white, compote from fruits, meat or fish just grilled, simply done with no garlic or spices, and I eat with great relish around noon and then take a nap.  

Never eat in a hurry. Savor every mouthful.  When you are in a hurry, rather don’t eat, and wait till you have time.  That is why many people overeat. They are frustrated.  Food should not be a pacifier, it should be a pleasure.  The most obese people in the world are Americans.  We also ruined Hawaii with that junk food that is fattening and addictive.  In Sedona where I live in the winter, the whole town is very aware of produce being grown organically, and locally if possible.  My fervent wish is that more people will wake up and demand excellent food. 

Now, after ninety years of age, the whole chapter about food changes, because who is boss is not what I like but my colon.  It dictates, if you don’t eat right, you will suffer. You have to figure out what is acceptable and what will get you into instant trouble with your colon.  Nuts, garlic, onion, spicy foods... all give my aging colon a really tough time.

A funny story how I finally understood who is boss!

 ...The Colon of course!

Trying to reach the ladies room at Publics in Palm Beach, I had to give up and throw away my soiled clothes.

I waited for someone to come and buy for me a mumu from the front of the store so I could emerge clothed and get back to my car.

My diet started to emerge... back to baby food... plain food that does not irritate the colon!  You have to be your own nutritionist to survive better.  I love delicious foods so I try to simplify them, everything not spicy and easy to digest.. and I have so far mostly  good luck.  Very little raw food, and if you must have lettuce, then romaine, not the fancy kind with all the stems.  Once in a while you can sin with nuts and onion, etc. and hope that it will be ok, but usually try steamed vegetables mushed.  We are only happy when our stomach is happy..and the feet don’t pinch... that is another chapter (See "Happy Feet").

Then we are a delight.

To summarize: Always eat little but the best, freshest foods. A small piece of aged cheese with good taste, but not that colored wax, which is how American cheese in slices strikes me.  
Very important:  Don’t rush!  Enjoy everything in small portions, but beautifully prepared and served.  If you are alone, invite someone to share the meal so it is more social and friendly. Use your “good china” and real glasses, unless it is a party or picnic-style, then paper plates are fine -- less work and just fun conversation with friends.

Food  - it should be a joy, but not a momentary fix to appease frustration or boredom.

Bon appetit!

BEING A MINORITY - Tough Chapter

Near the end of one’s life I imagine that everyone wishes to make sense of their lives and understand how their personal story fits into the grander sweep of history.  My story is part of the larger story of Jews in the world, and specifically in my case in Poland.

In the middle ages, Poland was a feudal country with nobles who owned the land, and peasants who worked the land, never owned anything really, and had to pay rents and taxes to the nobles.  Into this atmosphere of absentee landlords, gallivanting elegantly in Paris, and the poorest peasants living from hand to mouth with many children, came the permission to have Jews start a system of banking.   Although there were Jewish traders coming to Poland from about the year 960, it was Casimir the Great in 1334 who actually invited and welcomed the Jews as a group to handle more “modern” forms of finance as a middle class.  They were very restricted in terms of the places where they could live; they could not own land; they had the job of collecting rent and taxes from the peasants to send to the lords.  For this reason, they were resented and hated by the peasants. In addition, the Church taught the illiterate peasants that Jews killed their Lord and deserved to suffer. Nearly 100 percent of native Poles  were blond, blue-eyed, and Catholic.  Orthodox Jews had dark hair, curled earlocks, and distinctive dress that set them apart and caused additional ridicule. When the peasants got drunk they felt free to abuse the unprotected Jews with insults, stones, and intermittent pogroms.

We skip now to 1920 in the modern era. I was born at a time when many Jews were dressing like everyone else, super patriotic to Poland, having served in the Polish army in World War I, mixing freely in Polish society, and feeling confident of their equal citizenship status.  After Austrians and German lost WWI, Poland, which had been divided between Germany, Austria, and Russia, was again a sovereign nation.  Jews had been protected in Austria by Emperor Franz Joseph, and this caused additional resentment and hatred of Jews in Poland after war was over and Polish nationalism rose.  Still,  Jews were recognized poets, political leaders and advisors, scientists, writers, really functioning at a high level in Polish life.

My father’s family, the Kohns, remained in Vienna, Austria, after WWI, and had a prosperous and elegant life in what was considered the intellectual center of Europe at the time. Jews were prominent in every aspect of life, many very “secular” and assimilated. My mother’s family, however, had a very big building business in Rzeszow, about two hours east of Krakow (today on the border with Ukraine).  It was a large, hardworking, successful, close family... a good life.  Everyone accepted the limitations of being a minority in this Catholic country. As an example:  my friend Janek was the best student in university. Yet he was listed as second; a Polish student had to be first.  That was considered normal.  My father Benjamin "Beno" Kohn had a similar business to my grandfather's with building materials. During the Depression he sold the big wholesale store and most belongings and opened a smaller retail hardware store from the inventory at he could salvage.  I remember two nuns passing by the store and looking at the name on the window:  Benjamin Kohn and Co.  They pointed to the name and said to each other: “This is not one of ours.  There is another store on the next block.  More expensive but one of our people.”  So we were tolerated, but never really considered equal.

My home was a little different.  We did not live in the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, only in a nearly completely gentile neighborhood near the Park Krakowski, a magic place for all my childhood with swimming, boating, horseback riding, every sport, Italian ice cream, and other wonders.  Yet, my mother insisted that I attend a Jewish school an hour away, at the other end of town in the Jewish Quarter, more like the set of Fiddler on the Roof.  In that school we learned the required Polish subjects, but, in addition, remained an extra few hours a day to learn Hebrew as a modern language (quite an experiment of that day). It was not a religious education, but rather, gave a solid cultural and literary foundation of Judaism.  The professors were way above our heads; they should have been university-level professors, but those doors were closed to them, so they taught on a high school level students who, for the most part, couldn’t appreciate their greatness.

I felt very Polish, very involved in Polish life, and had a happy childhood with a tutor for languages, good schooling, dancing and  music classes after school, vacation at the ocean during the summer, skiing in Zakopane in winter,etc.  When Hitler crossed into Poland in 1939 my whole life stopped.  I describe the  events of those years of horror and loss in the book my daughter wrote - “From Miracle to Miracle: A Story of Survival.”  For about three years, I lived as a Catholic with false papers as Maria Zylinska.  I heard people talking in front of me in a way they wouldn’t had they known I was Jewish. These were people, who liked and respected me for who I was, for my work, my talents, my personality,had no idea about my true identity.  One Christmas, a university professor’s daughter, who worked with me at a job I had, knew I was alone and invited me for Christmas dinner at her home. I was basically hungry all the time, so this was a treat.  I sat at a lovely table, elegantly spread.  During the dinner with these intellectual, upper-class people, talk turned to the Jews.  When I heard their hateful, anti-Semitic comments, I couldn’t swallow; I felt like crying. This is what they really think about Jewish people? I was invited because of friendship; I was the same person... but if they found out I was Jewish, I would be in danger and probably turned in, and marked for death.

Nika as Maria Zylinska after liberation from POW camp
in Oberlangen, Germany 1945

In 1946, when I arrived in America, this rich country, I expected the cities to be beautiful.  I had come from Krakow, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  Everything in the USA was 100 percent different from what I was used to.  People in general did their own shopping and cooking without household help.  There were slums and poor people in the streets.  I couldn’t understand how this could be permitted. However, there were great differences that were also very admirable.

I learned slowly to trust policemen, who are here to protect you. In Poland, contact with a policeman would be trouble, and anyone in uniform during the war was to be avoided!

I had never seen black people and it took a while to get used to the mixture of all kinds of people. Everyone in America was some kind of minority and an immigrant from some other country.

My husband took me to Bear Mountain to show me the lovely scenic views where all the “refugees” (Jewish immigrants who got stuck during the World’s Fair in 1939 and couldn’t return to Germany,  Poland, etc.) had gone on brief vacations during the war. They had formed a group of close friendships, including Alfred Fleissig, who was now my husband, and wanted to show me places he had visited.

On this occasion he took me to a club where he had not visited before. We entered somehow from the back of the shooting club, part of the larger complex.  As we exited later from the front of the building, I was in shock: a big sign over the entrance read “No Jews or Dogs Allowed.”  For this I survived the Holocaust? To see such discrimination in the Land of the Free? I learned that there were restricted clubs, and neighborhoods where Jews were not permitted.  Once again, I was aware of being a minority, and couldn’t bear to see such hatred. 

Should we leave?  But where to go?  My husband was building up his business and we were creating a family and having children.  We chose a lovely place to live in the suburbs of NY, White Plains, across the street from a Reform synagogue.  I figured there we would have Jewish friends and find good schools for our children. 

I met many couples in America who were inter-married.  I saw that some Jews wanted to get away from the horrible history of Jewish suffering, and felt that with a non-Jewish mate their children would avoid suffering.  Under Hitler, even people who had one Jewish grandparent were judged as vermin to be executed.  People need to know their history and have pride in who they are... to know who they are. In a free society, it is less important to confront being a minority; but in tough times, discrimination rears up again, as I experienced.

I come from Cohanim, ancient tribe of Priests.  Centuries ago, when Jews lived in the Ancient Land of Israel, the Cohanim served as the spiritual leaders for the people. Down through the generations, a vestige of this honored position remained.  In traditional congregations, a Cohen is called up for the first honor of the reading from the Torah. There are still special restrictions on whom a Cohen can marry.  I never thought about it, until my beloved daughter informed me that she is studying to become a Rabbi.  So it went full cycle, and she emerged with a strong desire to help, teach, and bring Jewish tradition to the next generation.   

I feel personally that I have arranged my life in a positive way, and have traveled all over the world; I'm glad to be greeted with “Welcome Home” when returning to American soil. I don’t have to look behind me and be scared about who might see me or know who I am.  I have great friendships and close family.  All things considered, I feel that this country of America allows a shoemaker’s son to rise to any level.  There is still more freedom here than in other places in the world.

I solved it my own way but I wonder what the future will bring for the coming generations.

I want to write about the subject of “survival”  but right now I need to clear my head and take a walk around the marina in Wellfleet, Cape Cod, where I spend four months each summer .

I told you this would be a tough subject.  Not every chapter of my blog can be lighthearted and humorous.

Happy Feet in Comfy Shoes

When I put on these comfortable sandals I could kiss them.  Happy feet are in comfortable shoes!!! No one is looking at anyone’s feet if they have a bright color on top and are smiling. 

Forget about those torture chambers called high heels or narrow shoes....

I call this: Wisdom of happy feet!

Going into my nineties I discovered to my horror that something I had been so happy about, having a high instep, is now my downfall.  So you get a hammer toe, all bunched up. So naturally I admired anyone with painted, perfect toes.  

Last year, when I was traveling to Poland on Lot, the Polish Airline, in First Class there was a young woman with a baby and husband.  She gave me a catalogue of the line of shoes she designs... looked very sexy and pretty with great colors and cute on narrow feet, but not comfortable or possible for me.  I would have loved to get into shoes like those.  Now instead of pretty shoes, I search for sexy, fun socks and put my feet into the socks and happily wear comfortable sandals.  

 Nika's feet in cute flowered socks and very comfy sandals

WARNING:  ONLY CONTINUE READING THIS IF YOU HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR.  SERIOUS PEOPLE BEWARE!!!!

We have to cope and not lose our sense of humor, but rather only try to make people feel good and make them laugh.  And also laugh at yourself!

Do everything possible so that the upper part of your body is so colorful that no one will even glance at your feet.  You cannot change things that are inevitable but you can expand on your experience of your whole life to try to rearrange your life so that you will truly be happy... If you are miserable you will make everyone miserable.  If you are happy the children, grandchildren and friends will flock to see you no matter where you live.

The worst problem to me is to find help to do things that I have been doing by myself all my life easily, and now it takes a really long time, if I can do it at all... like washing my back and taking a dress on and off over my head.  Even fixing your hair or scratching your back you have to get help because your hand doesn't reach the place in question.  The most important is how well does your brain function... and that is the whole secret of good old age. Bridge is one of the things by which you can check how you are doing... can you concentrate long enough and play with people all over the world on the computer and once in a while in a local club as I do?

Where was I? Oh yes, about comfortable shoes.

That is truly important to stay happy and not have a miserable expression on your face.

Parts and Repair Department Nika's Blog #3 Life Begins at Ninety

Daughter Alicia writes: My mother Nika was very athletic, skiing, skating, rowing, playing tennis until just a few years ago,and even now carries herself beautifully upright with elegance.  It is true she gets a bit wobbly, especially when she has to get out of the car and stand up.  Below her musings on replacing parts and hinges of her body, is a lovely painting that she did of a woman in a pink hat and gown whose knees are quite flexible.  Seemed like a good illustration for this installment. 
...and now I found a really incredible photo of Nika in her twenties showing off her amazing flexibility!


Inside my mind I feel the same as when I was 18... however, after 80 all the parts started to wear out.  I had a new knee, a new hip, and am trying to avoid shoulder joint replacement by doing physical therapy and enduring twice-yearly injections.  From the time I was about 65 until my mid-eighties I played violent tennis, yes, that is the right word, violent.  I'm paying for that now.  My right arm I cannot lift because of a birth injury, but nothing wrong with my left arm, so I played holding the racket with my left hand and had a mean serve, if I do say so myself.  After my husband died,during those years from my mid-sixties to my mid-eighties I lived with a companion who loved tennis.  We traveled all over the world, including to the Ice Palace at the north pole for my eightieth birthday.

I was the best patient at rehab because I wanted to get back to walking, exercising, and traveling. So if you need a new hip or knee, do your rehab exercises, and besides that you might meet interesting people.  I had both operations done in Palm Beach, and there were such fascinating people including a former opera singer. You can make very good friends in rehab, but you should stay in touch afterward.  Bill got a new knee the same time I did, and he ended up coming to Sedona to help me move in.  That was in 2008, when I sold the condo in Palm Beach and moved to Sedona, Arizona, to be near my daughter who serves as rabbi in that community.  Bill helped hang all my paintings and within just a few days it looked like I had lived there for years!   So even if my hinges are going, I think I keep going with my positive attitude.

Friend Anne Crosman read this posting and added: "Nika might mention that today, at age 94 -- she walks daily, sits in the hot tub daily, swims daily, and exercises daily while watching TV!"

 

 

                                                             Painting of pink lady by Nika

Nika so flexible, in her twenties!